ALLEN PARK -- The Detroit Lions are scheduled to take the field for the start of training camp on Friday, but before they do that, coach Jim Schwartz will address the media for a press conference at the team's practice facility in Allen Park on Thursday.

• First question is on Jahvid Best and Stephen Tulloch's injury status. Schwartz says that will be determined today when they visit the trainers today. Talks about the rookies being put on PUP, saying it's best to take the conservative approach. Schwartz wouldn't be surprised to see a few more veterans placed on PUP. • How important is it to get Cliff here? Schwartz says there's a reason we do this. He'll be missing stuff. • Best has taken a bunch of test to be cleared, but there's still a test to be cleared for contact. Team is working with top national doctors, not just team doctors, to make sure he is properly cleared. • Schwartz says terminating Aaron Berry's contract was a very difficult from a football standpoint. Notes that he had done a great job this spring improving as a player. From a team standpoint, Schwartz says the decision was easy. Schwartz says you have to come to peace with those decisions and he's come to peace with it because if a player makes those kind of mistakes off the field, what kind of decisions will they make in big games. • Our secondary is pretty fluid. We used a lot of combinations at the OTAs. Injuries are common, so we have to be prepared for situations like this, so our focus has been having guys with the third team running with the first team. We drafted three corners, two of which are healthy, so we have a lot of different candidates. Bill Bentley has already made significant strides. You look for players that can make a jump when the competition increases. • Justin Miller has been a fantastic kick returner. He came into the league very young, but was a Pro Bowler several years back. He transformed his body from 205 pounds and a little pudgy, now he's in the 180s and ran very well. Drew Coleman is very experienced in the slot and we play half of our snaps in the nickel. • You don't pass up a chance to add talented depth like Jonathan Scott. You will see a lot of our tackles taking snaps at guard, but you'll also see our guards taking snaps at tackle. We take seven offensive lineman into games, so they have to be able to play different positions. • Schwartz declines to talk about his contract length, but says he's very grateful to the Ford family for the chance to continue to working for this franchise. • Asked if team is ready to handle increased expectations? I don't know if it's a challenge right now. We're focused on training camp right now, not the regular season or the playoffs. We can't get too far ahead of ourselves. We all have high expectations here. Is there added pressure? Not really. The expectations of fans or media don't change the way we're going to prepare. We'll be consistent in our approach. • We should have more competition this year. We won't have to look outside the team as much. Last year we put claims on half dozen guys, but I expect that to change. On the other hand, I expect guys we cut will be attractive to other teams. Your goal isn't competition, it's putting good players on the field. You can have four guys that aren't very good competing for a job. You don't want that. • There are no expectations on when Avril will get to camp. Schwartz says they have eight or nine other guys they'll coach up until he arrives. • Schwartz says he's talked with Avril a few times during the offseason and they've had no problem separating football from business. • Best could be cleared as soon as today. It's a team and player decision, the league does not have to sign off on it. • Today is all about physicals and logistics meetings, learning about hotels, meals, schedules. Conditioning tests will be tomorrow. • Schwartz says the team is going digital, switching to iPads • Team isn't worried about being a playoff team. Schwartz says they will approach meetings and practices like a playoff team and the end will take care of itself. • Reiff is going to mainly play right and left tackle, but you'll definitely see him playing some guard in training camp. • Berry release doesn't set a precedent. Every incident is different.